Summary

Why we are doing it

The A494/A55 between the River Dee and Northop Interchange is a dual 2-lane road. It experiences congestion frequently.

The road experiences more traffic than it was designed for, and is below modern standards. It is poorly aligned and there is nowhere for broken down vehicles to pull off the road. Some of the junctions have slip roads that are too short or too close to the road, some of which have poor visibility. It is at these junctions that the majority of accidents occur.

The aims of the scheme are to:

improve capacity, reliability and journey times

improve safety

improve connections for businesses

improve access between residential areas and places of employment

reduce carbon emissions along the road

make more efficient use of the existing transport infrastructure.

We will minimize the impact of these improvements on local residents, the landscape, air quality, biodiversity and pollution.

Current progress

We have appointed AECOM, supported by Richards, Moorhead and Laing Ltd, to study the possible routes.

Environmental and engineering surveys have been carried out as part of assessing the options in accordance with the Welsh Transport Planning Appraisal Guidance (WelTAG).

A 12 week public consultation was held between 13 March to 5 June 2017.

Having taken full account of the technical, social, economic and environmental aspects of the scheme and listened to the consultation responses, the Red Option has been chosen as the Preferred route.

Preferred route

The scheme

The scheme consists of:

A new 13km two-lane dual carriageway, linking the A55-A5119 Northop Junction (Junction 33) with the A494 and A550 north of Deeside Parkway Junction, via Kelsterton Interchange and the Flintshire Bridge. This option is partly online improvement and partly new alignment.

The scheme increases capacity along the existing A548, includes modifications and improvements to junctions and provides a new section of road between the A548 and the A55.

Timetable

How we are consulting

We held public information exhibitions in September 2015 and we undertook a 12 week public consultation between 13 March to 5 June 2017.

Next steps

The next steps will be to appoint technical advisors and a contractor to develop a preliminary design, which considers the environmental and engineering issues in more detail and looks to address some of the issues raised during the consultation..